This invention relates to the field of medical gas system testers. More particularly, this invention relates to apparatus and equipment for testing characteristics of gas outlets, valves, alarms and sources of supply at medical facilities.
Medical gas systems deliver life-support gases throughout health care facilities (hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, clinics, dental offices, free-standing surgical centers, etc.) to outlets in patient care areas, for connection to medical devices such as ventilators and anesthesia machines. The gases are transported from central sources of supply, such as oxygen manifolds, through control equipment and piping systems, valves which are primarily for emergency shutoff, and local and master alarm systems. The typical piped medical gases are oxygen, medical air and vacuum, waste anesthetic gas disposal, nitrous oxide, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide/oxygen mixtures, dental air and vacuum, and medical laboratory air and vacuum.
Testing and documentation of newly installed, renovated, repaired or breached medical gas systems, while obviously desirable, is presently required prior to use of those systems by patients. Two agencies that mandate the manner in which medical gas systems must be inspected are the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which is the primary accrediting agency for healthcare organizations in the United States, and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The NFPA 99C Standard on Gas and Vacuum Systems, 1996 ed., has been adopted into law by most states and by numerous municipalities and mandates that certain characteristics of these systems be within a certain acceptable range, as certified by periodic inspection and testing. Testing of the medical gas delivery systems includes testing of the various gas lines to determine that the pressure, flow, oxygen concentration, vacuum and gas evacuation (suction) lines meet the proper medical flow or concentration levels and to ensure that these lines are not crossed.
Health care facilities generally manually collect the medical gas data that has been gathered in such tests. The methods currently used for collection of this data are cumbersome, inefficient and poorly suited to the emergent nature of the data required. For example, handwritten reports and reports generated by some devices currently in use do not collate and summarize the results, thereby requiring the tester to expend extra time to search through data for hundreds or thousands of medical gas components in order to find defects. Such extended delays in reporting to the facility may compromise patient safety, and the life-support nature of medical gas systems and components makes these delays undesirable and inappropriate.
In general, notebook-type portable computers require a convenient surface for the computer to rest during typing. Most patient areas, however, have limited space and accessibility at bedside, providing no room for the operator to rest the computer. Wheeled stands to support the computer are cumbersome and inefficient. At this time, a portable, wearable system for collecting data from all medical gas system components does not presently exist. There is a clear need for such a device that is simple, convenient to use and efficient.
At present, individual pressurized gas flow meters that are equipped with pressure gauges are generally custom-assembled in order to functionally test medical gas outlets. One commercially available unit, distributed by the Squire-Cogswell Company under the name 5310 Vac-U-Test, is limited to testing air and vacuum outlets. This device is inefficient and cumbersome to use because separate vacuum flow meters with vacuum gauges must be used for vacuum inlets. Moreover, an oxygen analyzer is also needed, either separately or incorporated into the flow meter/gauge assembly. This device is further inefficient because documentation is carried out with a pencil, paper forms and a clipboard, which means that the operator must release two flow testers from his grip in order to record the data. In addition, the operator must remember numerous subjective problems and NFPA 99 specifications for flow, pressure, alarm low and high activation points, etc. for each of the various gases. In other words, these test points and specifications are not automatically tested and verified.
In many instances the collected data for outlets, alarms, valves and gas analysis is incorporated into a typed report for the client. Unfortunately, the hand tabulation that must first be done is time-consuming and results in delays in submitting the report. Therefore, in most instances, the health care facility receives only limited rough data with a cover page. Presently, most testing companies and hospitals provide few exception findings and do not recommend corrective action. At least one testing company is known to have the data manually typed into a notebook computer for later presentation to the client. Unfortunately, the spreadsheet format in which the data is presented restricts the amount and types of data that can be collected, and, again, exception findings are very limited, with no recommendations being given for corrective action. Therefore, because the data collection device is not a database, its value is limited to manual data collection and presentation.
One other commercially available medical gas tester is a portable, wearable device sold by National Safety Technologies, Inc. (NST) under the name G2500 Medical Gas Outlet Analyzer. This device is not used by many in the industry, presumably because the inputting of identifier data is done slowly and inefficiently, as each individual letter of the alphabet must be found by use of directional arrows and then displayed. Also, the choice of subjective findings is limited, and the device does not accurately analyze or record oxygen concentration for pressurized outlets, as required by NFPA 99 and others. In addition, this device can test only outlets, but not all other required components of a medical gas system, such as valves, alarms and central sources of supply, as required by NFPA 99 and others.
Also, the reports generated by this device do not collate or summarize the results. This means that valuable extra time is required in order for the person reviewing the reports to search through data for many medical gas components in order to locate defects. Furthermore, the NST device is not sufficient because storage of input is limited to 1,500 outlets at a time. Thus, because data must be downloaded to a host computer periodically, it is impractical for use by larger hospitals that have 5,000 or more outlets. Finally, in order to generate a report or to view more than several outlets at once, the information and data gathered by the NST device must be downloaded to a personal computer running special NST software.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a medical gas system tester that solves all these inefficiencies and deficiencies. It is desirable to provide a medical gas system testing computer that is hand-held and portable and that can test, collect, enter and interpret data from all medical gas sources and components.